Methods of Graphic Design of the Collected Editions: from the Experience of Soviet Artists of the 1920s

For the first time, there is presented the comprehensive analysis of the works of Soviet artists of book of the second half of the 1920s, engaged in the book design of the collected works. The flood of the book market with multi-volumes of fiction can be considered a kind of revenge of “big forms”, reaction to the previous stage of book culture, where brochure played the leading role. In the second half of the 1920s, the collected works were most often published in soft-covers. Each volume could be issued as a separate book, strikingly different from the other volumes. This gave the artists a certain freedom of manoeuvre and allowed to break the ingrained stereotypes. There was widely used a spectacular technique: the cover drawing was the same for all volumes, but the colouring of each volume varied.

The aim of the article is to expand the established ideas about the book design of the 1920s, to consider and introduce into scientific circulation the forgotten works of known artists. The author carried out the comparative analysis of the multi-volumes issued by the leading publishing houses of those years, using the complex of complementary methods: bibliological, art historical and general historical.

Gosizdat was the undisputed leader in the quantitative indicators of publications of the collected works, but its artistic policy in that area was characterized by old-fashioned conservatism tended to minimize the visual elements. The famous publishing house “Academia” in those years published the collected works quite rarely, but enriched the art of book with graphic cycles of such outstanding masters as V.A. Favorsky and N.P. Akimov. The book designers of the publishing house “Zemlya i Fabrika” were particularly successful and consistent in updating the appearance of the collected works: their works had a broad stylistic range and tendency to experiment. Creative search of artists of the 1920s deserves the attention of book historians, designers, illustrators, publishers, because it can give them productive creative ideas.

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